Candidates for The Center of the Universe: People with (Possibly) Erdos, Bacon, and Sabbath numbers
Before we get to the One Who Holds The Crown (the one person I've found with an Erdos, Bacon and Sabbath number), let me introduce you to the junior varsity, fascinating folks who ought to have all three numbers based on their accolades in multiple fields. There are very few of these, and I haven’t managed to track down the link for them, but it is my suspicion that it can be done. All of them have starred in movies, recorded on albums, and have published in respectable research journals. And all of them are disgustingly talented, the kinds of people who project your life’s drawbacks into clear relief. If you can’t tell, I’m insanely jealous. But I will swallow my pride, as they truly do deserve the accolades they get, including (hopefully) an Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath number. Here are my candidates for the title:
Brian Cox
He's an experimental physicist who works at the Large Hadron Collider (a ginormous particle accelerator), and yet you'd probably still throw your panties at him (I know I'd throw mine). He started his career playing keyboards in a band called "Dare", which (and I quote from Wired magazine) "made two albums and toured with Jimmy Page before they got into a fight in a Berlin bar and broke up." I think I speak for physicists everywhere when I say... THAT IS AWESOME! I know a hundred physics nerds who would LOVE to be cool enough to get into a barfight in Berlin. He then went on to join the band D:Ream, who garnered three top-ten hits in the UK, a major accomplishment in light of the extraneous punctuation in their name.
Bacon Number: This is the easiest to find, thanks to the Oracle of Bacon website (all the good website names are taken.) He can’t be linked through Kevin Bacon through feature films, but can be through a British morning TV show called “Breakfast”. I realize this is inexcusably weak, but we could assign Dr. Cox a Bacon number of 2 thanks to both of them being guests on this morning talk show. The clear thing to do here is to force Dr. Cox to star in a movie, at gunpoint if necessary, to shore up this weak link. Groundbreaking science sometimes calls for drastic measures.
Sabbath Number: By my reckoning, Dr. Cox has a Sabbath number of at most seven. Whom should we thank? We should thank his fellow D:Ream bandmate Peter Cunnah, who worked with T. J. Davis (vocals for D:Ream after Brian left), who did backing vocals for Gary Numan, who brought in a guest musician for one of his albums by the name of Roger Taylor, who is the drummer in the band Queen, which also contains the guitarist virtuoso Brian May (more on him later), who did a guest solo on a Sabbath album. Count 'em up, seven!
Erdos Number: Well, I haven't yet figured out his Erdos number, despite him making his primary living in the domain closest to Erdos. If anyone would like to help me follow the trail of coauthors, you can find a list of his physics papers here.
"We're calling you up to the majors..."
Since I first invented Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath numbers, developments have led to two people being promoted from AAA up to full-fledged Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath status. Read on for the exciting details!
>> Next Up: The People at the Center of the Universe